Roses and Marble
by Artemis1000
Summary: Veneziano composes a song and Romano proves a point. The Italies enjoy a domestic lull between battles. 2P Itacest Romano/Veneziano. Warning: incest, smut, blood play, knife play, gun play, mutual yandere... it's 2P folks.


Warnings: Incest, smut, blood play, gun play, knife play - nothing explicit but still, proceed with caution!

**Roses and marble**

His brother was singing that ridiculous song again, the one he was composing for Germany. It was a song praising youth, honor and the glory of war and quite frankly, Romano thought that Veneziano wasn't qualified to write verses about any of these things.

Veneziano made for an endearing sight, though, hunched over the giant ebony desk that dwarfed him downright comically, a tiny little pouty frown on his face as he tried to stare the sheet of paper into submission.

"Ve~ which one do you like better, fratello?"

Romano stopped pretending to read the reports and raised his head, meeting Veneziano's pretty reddish-purple eyes right on instead of just peering at him whenever he thought Veneziano wasn't looking. "You're an idiot."

That hint of a pout on Veneziano's lips turned into a full-blown pout. He sniffed indignantly. "Fratello's _mean_ today." It wasn't a complaint, just an assessment, intrigued and faintly amused. Playful. "I like it when fratello's mean."

Romano felt a shiver run down his spine. He barely stifled a groan. "Fuck you, Veneziano… Go back to your song."

Veneziano blinked owlishly. "Fuck me," he cooed. He was smiling again. "Ve~ would fratello do that? I'll ask nicely if I must!" His voice was breathless and eager as he put down his fountain pen with deliberate slowness, placed his hands on the desk and lifted himself up, all the while fixing Romano with an intense stare. It was the kind of stare with which an animal sized up its prey just before it attacked.

Romano ignored the shiver that ran down his spine and returned his eyes pointedly to his reports. "Later, Vene."

"Aww!" Veneziano plopped back into his chair. "You said you would, now you have to! If you don't, I will fuck _you_." Romano peeked at him from underneath his eyelashes to see that Veneziano had propped his chin on his folded hands and had gone back to watching him with that hungry predator's gaze. "I would make you bruise and bleed prettily. Like a living canvas. And then I would fuck you. Would you like that, fratello? If I made you beg for mercy?"

Romano pressed his lips firmly together. He couldn't deny that he liked the way Veneziano called him brother, as if it translated to "you're mine." It wouldn't stop him from trying. He snorted derisively for he never failed to scoff at Veneziano's games, yet when he spoke his voice quavered ever so slightly with painstakingly disguised desire. "I never ask you to stop."

Veneziano giggled sweetly. "That's true! Fratello always begs for more." He blew him a kiss and leant back in the huge leather armchair, a small and delicate figure before the imposing background, but Veneziano had made an art out of looking small and delicate in a world in which the smallest creatures were the most dangerous.

"I'll make you scream yourself hoarse," he promised with the air of a benefactor handing out spoils. He pursed his lips prettily and squinted his eyes until they were nothing but blissful narrow slits. "After the battle! You look nice when you're wearing red."

He shivered but refused to speak for he refused to entertain Veneziano when he was in that mood. Except he always did but that was alright, his refusal was as much a part of their game as Veneziano's pouting and his disturbingly childlike giggles.

His brother finally went back to composing his silly little song and Romano went back to reading.

The steady tick-tock of the grandfather clock provided the rhythm of his work and his distraction. Soon enough, Romano's thoughts went flying, escaping the tedium of reports about shortages. They might as well have said that they were short on everything but enemies.

His eyes found his brother, they always did. Veneziano was gorgeous and just as sweet as he was cruel. He was also entirely Romano's. Allies and bosses might fool themselves into thinking they had some claim on him, but they all came and went. Even the hold foreign masters once had over them was nothing but a pale imitation to the way Romano owned Veneziano. It was like playing with fire, but Romano liked it that way. You could not forge a blade without fire and Veneziano, Veneziano was a blade. One that could be wielded, as impossible as it sounded, though no one but Romano had succeeded to master this deceptively fragile knife.

Many of their foreign masters had tried. Every now and then, when he was feeling whimsical or simply bored, Romano would wonder if it had begun with these foreign masters. They had fought over them as if they were cattle and yes, Romano knew he wasn't without fault, either. He had turned on his brother when they should have stood side by side and maybe that had been their first step down a darker path. But they had been the ones who snatched them from their homelands, denied them their country, their people, their language and soon enough, one another.

Maybe that had been when the first cracks appeared in Veneziano's sweet soul.

Maybe it had been earlier yet, when their grandfather died. Grandpa Rome, as Veneziano still called him lovingly, while Romano snorted derisively whenever his name was mentioned; yet he secretly mourned his passing as well, if only for the secure childhood they had lost with him.

If Rome had survived, they would have been princes among the nations.

That was a line of thinking of Veneziano's, something that Romano was of two minds about as he was about many things Veneziano said or desired. He desired it, of course he did; every nation knew greed and the desire to conquer, to rule supreme. Yet there remained a part in his soul which insisted that Veneziano should be above such base desires. He should have remained pure and innocent to offset Romano's darkness rather than becoming just another, slightly more interesting shade of dark.

Maybe he could have remained untouched by the rot that got them all sooner or later, if anyone could have done it it would have been his sweet little brother. Veneziano hadn't started speaking like that until much later, after he had lost the Holy Roman Empire and Romano had finally realized the change his brother had undergone.

Austria and Spain had permitted them to exchange letters when Veneziano had fallen into despair after the loss of Holy Rome, whom he had loved despite all claims to hate him. Romano had known that something was distinctly wrong with his brother with the first letter. He had been unable, or maybe unwilling, to explain to Spain why, but he had known. It hadn't been until many letters and years later that he had realized, just like that, that the brother he used to know was gone.

_Austria let me visit Holy Rome's tomb today. They carved his seal into the marble coffin. Tell me, fratello, are they going to carve roses into big brother's coffin?_

He had yelled and kicked and raged then, but Spain hadn't cared to understand his grief, the bumbling fool who could destroy empires but failed to recognize the danger next door. He hadn't understood why Romano needed to see Veneziano right away and sent him to his room with well-intentioned reassurances that everything was alright. Romano had known that it was a lie, even if Spain hadn't.

"What is fratello thinking about? Is he thinking about pretty girls?"

Veneziano's warm breath tickled his cheek as pleasurably as that sweet singsong voice of his soothed his ears. He folded his hands on Romano's chest and when Romano looked up to the face belonging to that pair of hands, he found his brother dangling dangerously over the back of the armchair.

"Che, you're an idiot." He raised his head to grip Veneziano's shoulders, flashed him a smirk, savoring that moment as Veneziano's eyes widened with outraged disbelief when he realized what he was about to do. Then he pulled, sending his brother toppling onto his lap head first.

The ridiculous hat of his went flying and the nation himself went yowling, some ludicrous little noise that was supposed to be intimidating but utterly failed to unsettle Romano.

Veneziano righted himself in a flurry of flailing limbs and indignant purple ice eyes and when he was done, Romano found himself with a sharp blade against his jugular.

He would have liked to say he was surprised, but for all that he fancied himself an eccentric artist, Veneziano was awfully predictable in his madness.

That was why Romano had the barrel of his gun nestled ever so casually in Veneziano's lap.

Anyone else would be dead. Veneziano only ever made him bleed for pleasure.

It was hard to understand for an outsider, but Veneziano had his own set of principles and he honored them with the fierce dedication of the most honor-obsessed warrior, though he thought honor was a foolish concept, albeit useful to control the minds of equally foolish men. Veneziano did not break his own toys. He damaged them, he took them apart and put them together all wrong just because they looked funnier that way, but he never broke them for good. He was kind to these he considered his property, like a man would be kind to his faithful dog.

He also happened to love Romano, but that meant little in the grand scheme of things. Nations knew how to separate business and pleasure.

"You're a fucking idiot," Romano repeated with all the scornful dignity of a man who wasn't being held at knifepoint. His throat moved with his words and the blade cut into his skin. He didn't even wince at the pinprick of pain, yet he could tell the exact moment blood rose from the wound when Veneziano's eyes narrowed, then darkened.

"Ve~" Veneziano cooed just before his tongue took the knife's place.

Romano squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together in his most valiant attempt not to moan. He might have succeeded if Veneziano's hips hadn't jerked forward. He was, Romano realized dazedly, grinding himself against the barrel of the gun in obscene, sharp little thrusting motions. As if he were a girl fucking that gun. Romano moaned then; Veneziano cackle-snorted against his throat. There was nothing childish about that sound.

Romano released the safety catch. It made the softest clicking sound; Romano's guns were made to kill, not to impress.

He might have believed that Veneziano hadn't heard it, if it hadn't been for him laughing again. He sped up then and Romano would be damned if he knew what Veneziano was hoping to get out of this other than to taunt him into giving him exactly what he was asking for.

He would howl beautifully, a shrill shriek of pain because soft human bodies were not made to be speared by metal. Yet for all that he would howl, Veneziano would meet the thrust for that was what he always did. Be it pleasure or pain, he welcomed whatever Romano gave him, no matter how depraved.

Romano's finger trembled on the trigger. That was the problem. Veneziano wouldn't stop him. Romano hid his face against Veneziano's neck to stifle his moans against his sweat-slick skin. He buried his hand in Veneziano's hair, the one that wasn't holding on to the gun for dear life, and jerked his head back.

Veneziano whined in protest, the furious rhythm of his thrusts faltered. "Roma…"

"Ch… chigi!" He squeezed his hand into a fist around his brother's hair, vaguely aware that Veneziano was now whining in pain. "We can't," he growled and cursed the day, the circumstances, the war, the fact that he cared too much. "We need to be at our strongest on the battlefield." He would never forgive himself if Veneziano got injured because pain made him slow or clumsy.

"Ve…" His pretty smiling lips shaped themselves into another pout, Veneziano trailed the tip of his knife over his chest, right over the heart, and there was a heart-stopping moment in which Romano wouldn't have been surprised if he had thrust it deep into his chest. For all that he was predictable, there were times when he wasn't. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, the smile returned in its wake and then Veneziano's hazed eyes met his, shining with promises to be fulfilled later. "Spoilsport," he pouted, but the new gentleness in his eyes told Romano that he understood why they had to stop and loved him all the more for his concern.

Knife and gun clattered to the floor as their hands and mouths continued in a much simpler, yet no less passionate mating dance.

He caught Veneziano's hands and took off his gloves to reveal these nimble artist's hands of his. They could cut off a man's tongue with the flick of a slender wrist, as if they were adding the finishing touches to his latest masterpiece. Veneziano pouted, but Romano soothed his ire by kissing each soft fingertip in turn, then kissing the pout from his lips.

His lover had come to accept that Romano would not stand for any protective armor when they were together. The gloves were part of the picture Veneziano presented to the world, yet also served to keep it at a safe distance and he would not suffer any distance between them. Veneziano's business was a messy one, once it was over he couldn't stand to have body fluids on his bare hands. Romano didn't mind his silly hang-ups, as long as he was excluded, but he was still teaching him to enjoy in the bedroom what he loathed on the battlefield.

It was easier once Veneziano surrendered his shields, it always was. With each piece of the uniform he lost, he became more vulnerable, more human and all the more irresistible to Romano. This was a side of him no one else got to see.

The rest of the world would neither know that Romano could make Veneziano blush with a chaste kiss if he played his cards right nor that Veneziano loved to be pushed down on his knees and have his mouth fucked. It was the easiest way to shut him up.

If anyone else ever tried it Romano would send them home in pieces, tiny little sliced and diced ones. Veneziano would leave enough for him to do so, he was accommodating of Romano's jealousy. All things considered, Veneziano was a very considerate lover.

It wasn't until afterwards that his brother picked up the conversation Romano had disrupted when he pulled him onto the chair. He was a heartbreakingly sweet sight, curled up on his lap sated and delightfully submissive with an angelic smile on his lips and eyes that were all but sparkling with adoration. Romano felt his heart give a funny little skip. He brushed a kiss against the very tip of Veneziano's curl, making his brother shiver delicately in his arms.

"Fratello can think about pretty girls all he likes," Veneziano chirped, "but if he ever touches any I'll turn them into pretty art."

Romano's narrowed eyes met his brother's, crimson on purple, neither willing to give way though telltale heat was settling in his chest and his cheeks. "If you ever touch Germany I'll weave you a wreath from his entrails. There you have your fucking pretty art."

It was a long-standing point of contention between them. Veneziano would pout and laugh and say that Romano didn't like to share before he soothed him with vows that he was all Romano's and would forever remain so. Romano would profess not to be worried but he had never been able to lie to his brother. For all that Veneziano had never given him a reason to worry he couldn't help it. Never before had he possessed anything as precious as him. There was a reason diamonds were locked away where no one could see and covet them, yet Veneziano would not be locked away, so he had to hope and pray and love him the best he could… and keep removing the obstacles. It was a time-consuming task, but there was no helping that Veneziano was awfully cute. He wouldn't have him any other way.

Veneziano's eyes widened with childlike wonder. "Ve~! My Romano makes the sweetest promises!" He rubbed his cheek against Romano's, then proceeded to nuzzle it with his lips and nose. "I'm glad we had this little talk! Sharing your feelings is good for the soul!"

He picked himself up from Romano's lap and fastened his pants. He danced through the room as he buttoned his shirt and tugged his tie back into place, popping the hat back onto his head as the finishing piece. His lips were swollen, his hair a mess and his pants sported a telltale stain, yet Veneziano twirled with the grace of a ballet dancer.

Romano did not bother to point out the flaws as he tidied himself up with much greater attention to detail. Veneziano didn't care if anyone was appalled and he was offended, hurt even, whenever Romano tried to convince him that they should exercise caution. They were lucky that most bosses dismissed their desire as a symptom of their insanity. Humans were more lenient with the insane than with sinners.

His brother returned to the giant armchair behind the ridiculously oversized desk and picked up his fountain pen.

Romano picked up the report and watched Veneziano whenever he thought he could get away with it.

Tick-tock went the grandfather clock Veneziano loved and Romano loathed.

They had one more hour until they were to leave for the battlefield.

He could think of better ways to spend that hour than singing Germany's praises.

The next time Veneziano looked up, Romano didn't hastily lower his eyes. He met Veneziano's gaze and smiled.

The end

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End file.
